


Not Enough

by Murataku



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 18:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2631590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murataku/pseuds/Murataku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He runs himself ragged for her, but he can't give her what she needs and he knows it.<br/>Set in the Big Finish Audio series, between Colditz and The Rapture. No outright violence, but a certain rather messy demise is continually referred to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Enough

**Author's Note:**

> This came about because I and a friend realised that the downside of having a teenaged companion with no strong family ties is that you become her father, with all the responsibility that implies. And when said teenager has a few issues and has just witnessed a very gory death...  
> I should say now that this is my first completed story with these characters, or even this fandom. That said, I'm fairly happy with it.

He'd tried his best for her, nobody could say he hadn't. But it hadn't been enough.

He'd tried to keep her moving, have her run so far that she left the mangled corpse far behind her. Appeal to that knack for chaos and destruction that he usually worked so patiently to tame. They'd been to no less than five planets in the last week, toppled two regimes, and stolen three cars. He'd even let her drive. He'd mused out loud one day that he'd checked her age and found that she actually was old enough to drink, and that she would therefore not have to force another glass of lemonade down her throat ever again unless she chose to do so.

But it hadn't been enough.

He'd tried to be the father she'd never had, smothering the lingering fear and horror with warmth and affection. He'd helped her with her braid in the mornings, swearing hands on hearts that the image of the great Ace McShane, killer of Cybermen and Smacker of Daleks with Baseball Bats, sitting on her bed holding a stuffed elephant and playing with a straw hat while its owner twitched his fingers through her hair and chatted about dinosaurs would never leave her bedroom. He'd pressed so many cups of green tea into her hands that she'd started unconsciously wrinkling up her nose every time she saw a mug.

But it hadn't been enough.

He'd tried to simply not give her the time to dwell on it, make her too busy to pay attention to the agonized scream that still echoed through her mind. He'd made himself the center of her attention, even moreso than usual. Hills had been "accidentally" tumbled down. Cans of Nitro 9 had been comically mistaken for cans of deodorant. Coins had appeared out of thin air, hats had rolled down arms and spoons had been played. 

He'd done everything he could think of, short of actually reaching into her brain and erasing the memory. And, to his shame, in the middle of the night as he'd wandered past her room and heard her tossing and turning in her bed, he'd even considered that.

But it just hadn't been enough.

He wasn't entirely out of ideas, of course. She'd said a few times that she'd like to go home, see her family. It was obvious that her current state of depression was papering over all her usual feelings about her family with a thick layer of nostalgia, but the underlying idea was sound. She needed familiarity, something solid and strong to ground her. She needed people her own age, who, even if they had no chance of understanding her problems, could at least nod sympathetically and buy her another beer. She needed, every once in a while, to make a meaningful connection with someone who wasn't him.

Because, much as it killed him, he would never be enough.


End file.
